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aftershocks

> ES> I have another question.  When I shut the coil off after     
> ES> running for several minutes, I can draw a small spark from   
> ES> the system RF ground to my hand - up to 20 minutes later.  I 
> ES> don't understand this.  All connections to the AC line are   
> ES> broken.  

>Ahh, another interesting function of Tesla systems. As much as I
>post on this subject, it is hard to make people understand until
>they actually experiment. The ground is not at ground potential 
>when a Tesla coil is in use: the ground is hot. If you doubt the
>validity of this statement, ground a lone secondary coil that
>resonates at your system frequency to the system ground and fire.
>The bare secondary will resonate to good spark on the ground
>current.
	Ground is not a perfect conductor, ever (not trying to reignite that war
	main point below....)

>This is probably not the reson behind your drawing a spark
>though. Most likely it is an electrostatic phenomena. When
>coils are firing, electostatics (static electricity) behave
>very strangely. I have seen coils give static shocks, after
>shocks, after shocks; long after they were turned off and even
>completely removed from the system! Even after they had been
>grounded to system ground several times!

> ES> I would like to wet down the ground rod area but the ground  
> ES> is frozen right now.  Ed Sonderman

>I don't know if it will help, but see the post I sent on
>connecting plastic pipe sewer systems.

	Speculation:
	(and not disagreeing with the static oddities AT ALL):

	I note teh bit about "ground is frozen".  If ground (soil) is frozen,
	ground, (electrical) is poor.  Ice is an insulator (pretty good on, i
	think).  Running a coil, esp of fair power will mean current flowing to
	ground.  Locallized heating.  Water melts.  Better conductivity.  Over
	time (...20 minutes...)  water freezes.  Poor conductivity.  (should
	also, if speculation correct, mean change in tune as ground ice
	melts...).  Even if ground rod(s) penetrate to below frozen ground,
	heating will melt adjoining frozen ground, changing condcutivity.

	Which accounts for the time, perhaps, but needs Richard's observations
	on static oddities to account for the spark...

	regards
	dwp